Electric racing efforts helping McLaren in F1

McLaren is able to make better investments into facilities that will benefit its Formula 1 team as a result of its entry into electric racing series.

McLaren will take over the existing Mercedes Formula E entry for the series' third generation ruleset, to go alongside its existing team that competes in Extreme E. The have now been collectively branded as Neom McLaren Electric Racing after a partnership with the Saudi Arabian region, and McLaren Racing CEO Zak Brown says it allows the team to get a better return on investments that can impact the F1 team.

“With some of the limitations you have on equipment and cap ex (capital expenditure) it’s hard to justify some items where it’s exclusively for one series,” Brown said when asked by RACER about the impact of the F1 cost cap on its other racing efforts. “So to be able to go ‘we are able to buy that and use it across three or four different series’ then that makes some of the cap ex more justifiable.

“But from a people standpoint we’ve already done all that work. We’re right-sized in Formula 1 now for the size of Formula 1, so there’s no crossover in that sense.”

Although the Extreme E and Formula E teams have been rebranded under the Electric Racing banner, Brown says it remains part of the overall Racing set-up and has included no purchase of a stake from Saudi Arabia.

“It’s all under McLaren Racing, but our IndyCar team is its own racing vertical so this is no different to the IndyCar team, also under the McLaren Racing umbrella but we have an EV, IndyCar, eSports that we break out into their own racing programs.”